Exhortation Station

Hey everyone! Hope you are enjoying a restful sabbath. This will be a short post. Just wanted to share a couple passages that impacted me this morning.

This is an exciting season in my life. I just finished my summer internship a week ago, and in a week I’ll be heading back for my senior year in college. This week I’ve been thinking seriously about whether to attend graduate school after finishing by bachelor’s degree. Trying to navigate all the potential options surrounding graduate school has been challenging.

With all these things spinning around in my head, I found it difficult this morning to lay my cares aside and to truly enter into His sabbath rest. I recalled a couple Bible passages which proved to be needed reminders for me. The first one I’ll share is from Isaiah…

Isaiah 58:13,14 — “If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of YHWH honorable, and honor it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own word, ¹⁴ Then you will take delight in YHWH, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of YHWH has spoken.”

I had read this passage before — reading it again was convicting to me as well as encouraging. May we remember to drop our cares at His feet, to “desist from our own ways,” and to call His sabbath a delight on His set-apart day!

The other passage is from Philippians — one of my all-time favorites:

Philippians 4:6,7 — “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Messiah Yahshua.”

May we remember to bring verses like these to the forefront of our minds when tempted to get caught up in the anxieties of the week. May we remember to submit our requests to Yahweh with thanksgiving on our lips.

May Yahweh bless you and keep you!

(Bible passages NASB; Hebrew transl. added.)